In-depth | SAFETY Post-capsizal safety lessons


Te knockdown and capsizal of training vessel Concordia was initially attributed to a microburst accompanying a storm. However, a detailed investigation aſter the event revealed a sequence of overlooked events that contributed to the accident, which are worthy of the industry’s consideration, writes Jonathan Seymour.


Concordia was knocked down and rapidly capsized aſter encountering a squall off the coast of Brazil. All 64 crew, faculty and students successfully abandoned the vessel into liferaſts. and were rescued two days later by two merchant vessels and taken to Rio de Janeiro. Tat everyone survived is remarkable.


O


It was not an easy abandonment. Several liferaſts could not be launched, and a distress call could not be made. Much of the credit goes to safety preparedness: there was twice the number of life raſts onboard than required by regulation; the life jackets had recently been moved to deck lockers to improve accessibility; and regular safety drills had taken place. Youth and agility also played a


n 17 February 2010, at approximately 14:23 local time, the sail


training barquentine


significant role, though conditions in the liferaſts proved difficult. Te emergency position


indicating radio beacon


(EPIRB) functioned as designed and its position was established within an hour of the knockdown. However, the contact number for the EPIRB was long out of date, a false alarm was suspected, and it took many hours before a comprehensive search and rescue attempt was initiated. Concordia was registered in Barbados


and the owner was a Bahamian company. However, the vessel’s ties to Canada were substantial. The charterer was a Canadian school; management was located in Canada; and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, was its home port. Because of this, and the fact that many witnesses were located in Canada, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) investigated the accident. The


Canada’s TSB was charged with investigating the capsizal of the sail training barquentine Concordia (credit: Matt Jacques photography).


Board’s report was published on 29 September 2011; the full text, related documents and animations can be found at the TSB’s website: www.tsb-bst.gc.ca.


Beyond ‘common wisdom’ Initial reports on the capsize all seemed to agree that the knockdown was caused by a vicious microburst associated with a thunderstorm and that there was nothing that could have been done to avoid it. Tis quickly became ‘common wisdom’ and the focus of media comment moved on to the lengthy delay in recovering the survivors. But the evidence available to the TSB,


which included video and photographs, along with statements from those on deck at


the time, suggested that the


winds never exceeded Beaufort force 7—weather conditions that Concordia had encountered many times in its 20 years of ocean voyaging. Satellite imagery was obtained and weather experts were consulted. In comparison to thunderstorms known to have produced microbursts, it was clear that this one was not sufficiently formed to do so. So what happened? To find out, it was


quickly decided that a thorough assessment of Concordia’s stability was required. We were fortunate to have good data to


work from: the ship’s plans, a copy of the stability booklet, onboard observations, plus the video and photographs. All this proved sufficient to allow one of our naval architects to develop a computer model of the vessel and analyse its stability (a full report on the vessel’s stability assessment can be found on the TSB’s website). Te model was then used to generate the righting arm curve and compare it to the theoretical wind heeling arm curve for the sail plan in use at the time and a range of wind speeds. Tese calculations were verified against the known conditions and events of the


16 Ship & Boat International March/April 2012


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